The Waiting Samurai
by SailorEarth5
Summary: How long would someone wait to fulfill a promise? (Note AmidamaruMosuke. This means Shounen Ai. You have been warned)


He was waiting for someone. The sun rose and set. The moon waxed and waned. Seasons changed, from youthful spring to sultry summer to cheerful fall to quiet winter. And still he waited.  
How long had he been doing this? Days, months, years, centuries? He never moved, not once from his spot. The tree, which had been a young sapling when it began, was now a proud middle-aged growth that spread its leaves out to the sun. He watched the small town that he knew grow from a sprawling coastal village to a towering city, filled with castles made of metal and hard black roads filled with horseless carriages. It mattered not to him, watching the change with only a passing interest. His mind was bent on one thought and one thought only.  
For six hundred years he had waited, never moving from the promised place, never breaking the oath he had made so long ago. He became a sort of curiosity, as the graveyard was filled in. Treated with reverence, respect, and a healthy dash of fear, thanks in part to the legend surrounding his death. The fact that his neighbors were already dead did little to diminish these feelings. There are indeed fates worse than eternal sleep.  
There were times, he admitted to himself, only in the deepest parts of night when all other denizens of the graveyard were slumbering and the stars wheeled silently across the sky, were he almost gave up. Gave up hope that the other would come, that perhaps he had indeed already passed over into the afterlife without him. Black despair would fill the darkest corners of his soul, where not even the wandering beams of moonlight and starlight could reach. He imagined walking to the edge, grasses not even bending under his vaporous form, sandals shuffling silently , pausing for a breadth, then tensing, leaping, flying for an eternity, for a breath in time, before his soul plummeted down into the depths of hell, where his many enemies awaited him. With out the other, he would be unfit for heaven, spirit and heart beyond redemption, pain beyond the healing hands of immortals, for the many lives he cut short. It did not matter that they were evil men with hearts black as the smoke that burned from modern buildings. And for all time he would be separated from the other. A fate endured in the depths of the underworld below.  
He was called back many times from this prospect by the faint hope still left in his heart, and the memories of his childhood. He would wait, he chided himself, like the samurai he was, and uphold his honor, even if he waited until time ran out. There are few things stronger than a samurai's oath, and he would not endure the shame of adding the title of oath breaker to his name.  
While he took a little comfort in this, he endured another shame: the breaking of his tombstone.  
Never mind that he was mere shadow and thought, and that the ability to defend had been pulled away from him centuries ago. The one who had destroyed his resting place had been no warrior, but a mere child-man, tall and loud and empty, strutting his pride like an over-grown cat. Oh how he wished he could teach this creature some respect. A mere wooden sword had broken the tombstone, erected by an ancient priest who had taken pity on him, lost in his rage and sorrow when he first died. A place given to him so that he could wait and fulfill his promise. All that shattered in seconds.  
It was a small wonder then, when the child offered himself as a vassal for his spirit, that he leapt at the chance to regain his honor. There was no skill needed in the following battle, something that irked his pride. To be defeated by such weaklings! Perhaps it was good his friend could not see him. It was a given he would be rolling around on the grass, his ghostly guffaws echoing loudly in the still darkness. Then there would be the inevitable fight, as he attempted to regain his wounded pride, the pair of them wrestling on the ground. Despite his friend's obvious strength, he would invariably end up on top, faces flushed, heavily breathing which casted small wisps of clouds into the air. And then.  
He would roll off the other, grinning from ear to ear in victory. The other would snort at the lack of dignity he displayed, but he would relax none-the-less, arms folded behind his head. He would join the other, so that together they laid there in stillness. Sometimes, he would doze, letting the warm rays of the sun heat his cool body. It was times like this that his friend would shift slightly, so that he laid on his side. Slowly, shyly, an arm reached out and touched his forehead. Awkwardly the heavily calloused hand would run its fingers through his grayish locks, gently untangling the grasses and sticks that littered them. This had become a sort of ritual, he, the noble samurai pretending to sleep, while his friend, the hardy sword smith would steal touches like an illicit lover. Never anytime else.  
It was only after his death that he realized how much he missed those moments, fragments of memory stolen from the sweep of time. In the crystal- clear clarity of his ghostly mind he realized something that his friend had known all along in life. The bond they shared ran deeper than the ties of friendship, the beginning of everything. How deep it ran was something he pondered in those dark moments, wondering if he should stay or jump. But always, it kept him there, in hope.  
That was why he turned down the offer to be the child's ghost companion. The promise anchored him there, to leave was to forsake it.  
He would wait until the stars and moon fell down, until the bones of humanity had long turned to dust, until the tree fell over, insides gutted and rotten, crawling with creatures that preyed upon and returned it to the earth. When time ended, he would still be there, waiting until he came, finally, climbing up the hill, sword in hand, and stood in front of him. Then, he would take the sword and pause, glancing for a moment into the other's eyes.  
"I'm sorry I'm so late," he would say, grinning that haughty smirk that he wore when he was trying to be confident, "but things came up. I'm sure you know how it is, Amidamaru."  
"I'm glad you came, Mosuke," and maybe, at the end of time, he would lean in and kiss his friend, and make up for lost time. 


End file.
